LECTURE 6
11 He came unto his own, and his own did not receive him;
12 but whoever received him, he gave them power to become
the sons of God, to all who believe in his name,
13 who are born not from blood, nor from the desires of the flesh,
nor from man’s willing it, but from God.
142 Having given the necessity for the incarnation of the Word, the Evangelist then shows the advantage men gained from that incarnation. First, he shows the coming of the light (v 11); secondly, its reception by men (v 11b); thirdly, the fruit brought by the coming of the light (v 12).
143 He shows that the light which was present in the world and evident, i.e., disclosed by its effect, was nevertheless not known by the world. Hence, he came unto his own, in order to be known. The Evangelist says, unto his own, i.e., to things that were his own, which he had made. And he says this so that you do not think that when he says, he came, he means a local motion in the sense that he came as though ceasing to be where he previously was and newly beginning to be where he formerly had not been. He came where he already was. “I came forth from the Father, and have come into the world,” as said below (16:28).
He came, I say, unto his own, i.e., to Judea, according to some, because it was in a special way his own. “In Judea God is known” (Ps 75:1); “The vineyard of the Lord of hosts is the house of Israel” (Is 5:7). But it is better to say, unto his own, i.e., into the world created by him. “The earth is the Lord’s” (Ps 23:1).
144 But if he was previously in the world, how could he come into the world? I answer that “coming to some place” is understood in two ways. First, that someone comes where he absolutely had not been before. Or, secondly, that someone begins to be in a new way where he was before. For example, a king, who up to a certain time was in a city of his kingdom by his power and later visits it in person, is said to have come where he previously was: for he comes by his substance where previously he was present only by his power. It was in this way that the Son of God came into the world and yet was in the world. For he was there, indeed, by his essence, power and presence, but he came by assuming flesh. He was there invisibly, and he came in order to be visible.
145 Then when he says, and his own did not receive him, we have the reception given him by men, who reacted in different ways. For some did receive him, but these were not his own; hence he says, his own did not receive him. “His own” are men, because they were formed by him. “The Lord God formed man” (Gn 2:7); “Know that the Lord is God: he made us” (Ps 99:3). And he made them to his own image, “Let us make man to our image” (Gn 1:26).
But it is better to say, his own, i.e., the Jews, did not receive him, through faith by believing, and by showing honor to him. “I have come in the name of my Father, and you do not receive me” (below 5:43), and “I honor my Father and you have dishonored me” (below 8:49). Now the Jews are his own because they were chosen by him to be his special people. “The Lord chose you to be his special people” (Dt 26:18). They are his own because related according to the flesh, “from whom is Christ, according to the flesh,” as said in Romans (9:3). They are also his own because enriched by his kindness, “I have reared and brought up sons” (Is 1:2). But although the Jews were his own, they did not receive him.
146 However, there were not lacking those who did receive him. Hence he adds, but whoever received him. The Evangelist uses this manner of speaking, saying, but whoever, to indicate that the deliverance would be more extensive than the promise, which had been made only to his own, i.e., to the Jews. “The Lord is our law giver, the Lord is our king; he will save us” (Is 33:22). But this deliverance was not only for his own, but for whoever received him, i.e., whoever believe in him. “For I say that Christ was a minister to the circumcised, for the sake of God’s truth, to confirm the promises made to the fathers” (Rom 15:8). The Gentiles, however, [are delivered] by his mercy, because they were received through his mercy.
147 He says, whoever, to show that God’s grace is given without distinction to all who receive Christ. “The grace of the Holy Spirit has been poured out upon the Gentiles”(Acts 10:45). And not only to free men, but to slaves as well; not only to men, but to women also. “In Christ Jesus there is neither male nor female, Jew or Greek, the circumcised or uncircumcised” (Gal 3:28).
148 Then when he says, he gave them power to become the sons of God, we have the fruit of his coming. First, he mentions the grandeur of the fruit, for he gave them power. Secondly, he shows to whom it is given, to all who believe. Thirdly, he indicates the way it is given, not from blood, and so forth.
149 The fruit of the coming of the Son of God is great, because by it men are made sons of God. “God sent his Son made from a woman... so that we might receive our adoption as sons” (Gal 4:5). And it was fitting that we, who are sons of God by the fact that we are made like the Son, should be reformed through the Son.
150 So he says, he gave them power to become the sons of God. To understand this we should remark that men become sons of God by being made like God. Hence men are sons of God according to a threefold likeness to God. First, by the infusion of grace; hence anyone having sanctifying grace is made a son of God. “You did not receive the spirit of slavery... but the spirit of adoption as sons,” as said in Romans (8:15). “Because you are sons of God, God sent the Spirit of his Son into your hearts” (Gal 4:6).
Secondly, we are like God by the perfection of our actions, because one who acts justly is a son: “Love your enemies... so that you may be the children of your Father” (Mt 5:44).
Thirdly, we are made like God by the attainment of glory. The glory of the soul by the light of glory, “When he appears we shall be like him” (1 Jn 3:2); and the glory of the body, “He will reform our lowly body” (Phil 3:21). Of these two it is said in Romans (8:23), “We are waiting for our adoption as sons of God.”
151 If we take the power to become the sons of God as referring to the perfection of our actions and the attainment of glory, the statement offers no difficulty. For then when he says, he gave them power, he is referring to the power of grace; and when a man possesses this, he can perform works of perfection and attain glory, since “The grace of God is eternal life” (Rom 6:23). According to this way we have, he gave them, to those who received him, power, i.e., the infusion of grace, to become the sons of God, by acting well and acquiring glory.
152 But if this statement refers to the infusion of grace, then his saying, he gave them power, gives rise to a difficulty. And this is because it is not in our power to be made sons of God, since it is not in our power to possess grace. We can understand, he gave them power, as a power of nature; but this does not seem to be true since the infusion of grace is above our nature. Or we can understand it as the power of grace, and then to have grace is to have power to become the sons of God. And in this sense he did not give them power to become sons of God, but to be sons of God.
153 The answer to this is that when grace is given to an adult, his justification requires an act of consent by a movement of his free will. So, because it is in the power of men to consent and not to consent, he gave them power. However, he gives this power of accepting grace in two ways: by preparing it, and by offering it to him. For just as one who writes a book and offers it to a man to read is said to give the power to read it, so Christ, through whom grace was produced (as will be said below), and who “accomplished salvation on the earth” (Ps 73:12), gave us power to become the sons of God by offering grace.
154 Yet this is not sufficient since even free will, if it is to be moved to receive grace, needs the help of divine grace, not indeed habitual grace, but movent grace. For this reason, secondly, he gives power by moving the free will of man to consent to the reception of grace, as in “Convert us to yourself, O Lord,” by moving our will to your love, “and we will be converted” (Lam 5:21). And in this sense we speak of an interior call, of which it is said, “Those whom he called,” by inwardly moving the will to consent to grace, “he justified,” by infusing grace (Rom 8:30).
155 Since by this grace man has the power of maintaining himself in the divine sonship, one may read these words in another way. He gave them, i.e., those who receive him, power to become the sons of God, i.e., the grace by which they are able to be maintained in the divine sonship. “Everyone who is born from God does not sin, but the grace of God,” through which we are reborn as children of God, “preserves him” (1 Jn 5:18).
156 Thus, he gave them power to become the sons of God, through sanctifying grace, through the perfection of their actions, and through the attainment of glory; and he did this by preparing this grace, moving their wills, and preserving this grace.